Demon Children And The Movies That Made Them Famous

The new horror flick, Orphan, maybe have adoption groups up in arms for its demonic main character, but crazy Esther has a long line of demon spawn who proceeded her.

Hollywood loves casting kids as the bad guy.

Think Macauley Culkin in the Good Son. The Bad Seed. Drew the Firestarter. The Children of the Damned. And who can forget Chuckie (OK, he wasn’t a “real live boy” but close enough)?

Pondering the fate of kids in horror flicks in particular in an AP article this week, Josh Heuman of Texas A&M University suggests that the movies play “on the dirty little secret that kids aren’t sweet and innocent, and the anxiety that it provokes.”

Fair enough. Because who ever suspects the kid is behind the whole thing when they’re reading a really good murder mystery? Maybe if you’re especially cynical, you do, but I’m not yet that far gone. And when I walk into a movie, I confess I prefer to think the kids are ultimately good-hearted. Which probably accounts for the handful of horror movies I’ve been able to stomach versus the hundreds of films in other genres I rent, own, etc.

Yes, I’m a total wuss. Or a total sucker – depending on how you look at it. Because there are evil kids out there – think Willie Bosket, whose homicidal crime spree as a teen changed New York State law to allow kids as young as thirteen to be tried for murder. So why should the movies be any different?

Orphan and its adoption issues aside, do kids really deserve a bye in the movies? They might not start fires with their minds in real life, but there are some pretty freaky kids out there!

I’m also totally wowed by how an adorable kid (a la Drew Barrymore) can look so incredibly evil, and make some of us wake up in cold sweats (what did I tell you – wuss).

Child actors get a lot of flak, but you’ve got to hand it to these kids – they’re working against the stereotype Heuman describes and totally creeping us out.

What movie monster kid gave you nightmares?

Image: Amazon